Friday, May 31, 2013

The grass, the trees, the moss growing up the side of the garage, the aloe plant in the window sill, and even the duckweed floating around my pond next to the lily pads. It hasn't stopped raining in 5 days. Today is the first day the power has been back on in 25 hours so I could actually take a shower and wash some of the bug spray off my body and out of my hair. I planted my garden before the rain began; I am sure everything has drowned by now.

I remember reading the first book of the Twilight series when Bella spoke of how everything was green in Washington compared to Arizona. Well so is everything in Michigan. It is squashy, muddy, damp and green. Its especially fun when you go outside for five seconds and get eaten alive by mosquitoes. My least favorite part is that it is ball season. I want to play, I want to watch, and I want to be outside at the fields. I've played 3 games this season... 6 have been cancelled. My daughter plays two nights a week, 5 have been cancelled. If this is premise to how awfully hot the summer is going to be, I am screwed. This ginger is going to spontaneously (not maybe not even spontaneously) combust around mid-July.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Yesterday in my Communications class we did a brainstorm on the board. Yes, precisely as you remember from 2nd grade. The teacher gave us one word and we shouted out what we thought she should write. The word was "Indian." A great word for a brainstorm. There were things like genocide, Native American, Hinduism, Mecca, Tepee, Islam, Casinos, etc... People were going in a lot of different directions with this word - which I think was the point. Then she erased all but one word: "Pocahontas."
She said "If I were going to write my speech on her I would perhaps do another brainstorm. And the first thing that comes to my mind is Lewis and Clark."
Immediately I looked dumb-founded. It was the first day of class so I couldn't exactly raise my hand and correct her, but now I am completely pissed off that a college professor with two Master's degrees doesn't know that Pocahontas stayed in Jamestown and was probably killed off by a bout of disease, not off traveling in the west like the ENTIRE STORY she told. I wanted to cough out "Sacagawea" but instead I jotted a note to myself down on a little piece of scrap paper and stuck it in my folder so I could think about it later. Class ended shortly after but now I was completely annoyed.

WTF?!

Back in 2002, I had this same teacher for my Comp I class and I really liked her. I excelled and got an A but I do not remember anything like this ever happening. When I signed up for this class I thought to myself "Sweet. I remember her. This will be a breeze!" Crap. Now I can't focus on anything but her stupidity. A college professor who just got thousands of dollars from her students who she is teaching the wrong shit to? Damnit! C'mon! Maybe I should have just corrected her so I could move on and get over it.
Sadly, my daughters teachers aren't any better. They Xerox pages out of workbooks and send them home as homework. No one is learning anything except me, because I have to do YouTube tutorials to figure out how to do her homework. Then teach it to my kid. Maybe the district should pay me the teacher's salary. My daughter even had to sign her name the other day and didn't know how to because oh yeah! They don't teach cursive anymore! So what do they teach exactly? I think it may be a question that needs to be addressed with vehemence. Obviously whatever they are teaching -especially at the college level- is freaking wrong! Oh my, this is going to be a long semester!

**Update: 5/13/13. Today in my Political Science class the teacher referred to the book Little Women by one of the Bronte Sisters. Oh dear. Little Women was written by Louisa May Alcott. And I know this because I have read it five or six times. I am hoping this was just a slip up because this teacher seems legitimately smart, but crap. I feel like I am worse off than not going to school at all. This time I did correct it, for those of you that wanted me to the first time. I told him "I am sorry for being a prick student and correcting my teacher, but neither of the Bronte sisters wrote Little Women." Needless to say he thanked me for correcting him; however, I don't think everyone would be as grateful.